Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 06 - Lucky Man (11 page)

“Oh, Tubby, please help me,” Norella screamed from the room inside.

“Who the hell are you?” the detective in charge wanted to know.

They managed to get it all sorted out without anyone getting arrested.

The deceased was indeed Max Finn.

The detective was LaBoeuf Kronke. On closer inspection he remembered Tubby, having once interrogated him regarding the murder of a dockworker named Broussard.

Norella Finn, formerly Norella Peruna of Honduras, was the widow.

By virtue of butting in, Tubby was now her lawyer.

She was not, however, under arrest or even under suspicion at the moment, and the detective had only pulled her out of the ambulance to determine her identity, he said. Unfortunately, she was not free to go just yet because the detective wanted to talk to her. And she did not want to go because, in the midst of this tragedy, she had nowhere else to be.

Tubby could either stick around or split, it was up to him. Just stay out of the medical examiner’s way and don’t touch anything, he was told.

“Well, actually I have some friends outside,” Tubby hedged.

“Oh, Tubby, don’t leave me,” Norella sobbed.

He was stuck, but fortunately detective Kronke ushered in the next-door neighbor, a large effusive woman who immediately embraced Tubby’s delirious client and began consoling her with peeps and coos like a giant pigeon courting.

Not bothering to ask for anyone’s permission, the neighbor stood Norella up and marched her out of the gloomy house. They went next door.

Left with nothing to do, Tubby wandered. He halted spellbound when he beheld the speedboat suspended outside the picture window at the rear of the house.

“What kind of a boat is that?” he asked the patrolman taking pictures of the chalk outline of nobody on the plush cream carpet.

Tubby had never been in such a boat. His experience was with the kind of vessel that rode a trailer, pulled water skis, and had a built-in well for storing bait. “Damn thing must top sixty miles an hour,” he said to himself.

“Lieutenant said it would go one hundred and eighty,” the cop whispered.

“I’ll be damned,” Tubby said. The craft reminded him that there was a public boat launch outside and that he had deserted his friends in the parking lot.

“Guess I’ll be going,” he told anyone who cared to listen, and scampered out the door.

The ambulance was still there, and some of the crowd, and so was the sizable cop who had tried to bust him.

Tubby stayed well away from that gentleman when he bent under the tape and tried to melt back into the ring of spectators.

He found Cherrylynn leaning against his car. She was smoking a cigarette but stepped on it when Tubby walked up.

“What happened to Raisin?” Tubby asked.

“He and his girl left. She said as long as Finn was dead she didn’t need to stick around. You and Mr. Raisin aren’t friends anymore?”

“Sure. Why do you ask that?”

She looked away, toward the lake and the waves rolling in. “You ought to make peace with him,” she said.

“Thanks for the advice. You want to get something to eat?”

“I’d rather go home and take a bath,” she said. “Death is dirty.”

At his office Tubby was waiting for Norella Peruna Finn to show up.

Cherrylynn stuck her head in the door.

“Mr. Boaz called,” she reported. The sullenness of recent days was still in her voice.

“Thank you so much. That’s a very nice dress you’re wearing.” He was trying to induce an improved mood.

“
Gracias
,” she said, giving him a half smile, “I’ve had it for years.”

“Oh.”

She turned and pranced out.

“My mistake,” he said to her back.

He wondered if Cherrylynn had a boyfriend these days. It had been a while since she had mentioned one. Problems in the romance department might explain her testiness and her tardiness.

He cast aside thoughts of Cherrylynn’s sex life, picked up the phone, and punched in Jason’s number.

“Speak,” the voice at the other end of the line commanded.

“Good morning, Jason, this is Tubby.”

“My man, I’ve got a new idea I want to run by you.” Jason was always full of new ideas. Many were flaky, but the good ones had made him big money. It was how he made his living. He paid Tubby to protect his strange notions with patents.

“I’m all ears.”

“It involves men’s ties. They’re a drag to wear, as I’m sure you know, and they cost fifty bucks apiece. We can avoid all that by painting a picture of a tie directly on the shirt.”

This was not going to be one of the good ones, Tubby feared. Jason supplied a few more details. There might be some potential here. Hell, Tubby knew he was no judge of what would sell and what wouldn’t.

“What say we meet at the Fairgrounds and watch the ponies race a few. You can run your meter.”

“I’m real busy these days, Jason. Couldn’t we get together at my office.”

“Say again?”

“Let’s meet here.”

“Tubby, that’s the first time I heard you say no to the track.”

“Well, you know, you’ve got to buckle down and work sometimes.”

“That’s middle-aged thinking, my boy.”

“Sure, but we’re middle-aged. I saw your old girlfriend yesterday.”

“Which one?” Jason was suspicious.

“Norella.”

“Yeah? Must have been with her new husband. He’s into boats and money and all that stuff.”

“Her late husband, Max Finn. He died.” It crossed Tubby’s mind that Jason might somehow be involved in this mess, but he dismissed the thought as absurd.

“Sweet Mary, that’s a shame. Did she kill him?”

“I don’t think so. Why would you say that?”

“She’s high-strung and flighty, and mean in short spurts.”

“No, I don’t think she killed him. It’s not even clear yet what he died from.”

“She’ll have a new man soon.”

“You think?”

“Norella is a special, beautiful butterfly. She flits from flower to flower. I haven’t see her since she threw a Scotch and soda in my lap at the Red Saloon. I might not see her for another year, but when I do she’ll give me a wicked smile and a kiss. She’ll say she’s been thinking about me all the time.”

“Jason, nobody could forget you.”

“That true, I guess. How about tomorrow at one. As a compromise, let’s eat at the Redfish Grill.”

Tubby said that would be just fine.

***

Norella was sobbing on the sofa. Tubby was behind his desk, suffering.

“Did the police find any sign of forced entry?” He was looking at his yellow pad.

“No.” There was a vacant look in her red-rimmed eyes. Her hair was askew. Her hands were clasped between her brown knees.

“Have you noticed anything missing?”

She shook her head.

“What did your husband do with that boat?” he asked. The attractive image of the sleek spear-shaped hull appeared in his mind.

“He liked to race,” she said simply. “But it is a very expensive thing to have, such a boat.”

“Exactly what kind of work was your husband in, Norella?” He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She seemed to hesitate.

“Max had lots of money in the stock market. And he gambled. He made big deals with lots of important people.”

“What about his escort service?”

“What escort service?”

“Well, let’s start with a woman named Sapphire Serena and another woman named Sultana Patel. He paid them to go to parties. Ring any bells?”

“That’s bullshit!” she said indignantly. “I never heard anything about that.”

“Really? Well, did you ever see him with strange women?”

“Of course not. How foolish.” Norella blew her nose loudly in her hankie.

“That’s what you told the police?”

“Sure.” She looked up at him, all innocence.

His eyebrows did push-ups. “Maybe that’s why they consider you a suspect,” he said.

“That is insane. I am his wife. I had nothing to do with this.”

“Who do you think did?”

“He’s had arguments with Lucky LaFrene. They had some kind of business deal that went bad.”

“Lucky LaFrene the car dealer?”

“That’s him.”

“You think Lucky LaFrene might have killed your husband? He’s a millionaire.”

“What difference does that make?” Her Latin eyes flashed.

“Norella, just what is it you want me to do?” he asked in exasperation.

“Get me out of this,” she hissed. “Poor Max is not the point. I don’t like death. Finn had money. I want my share. I don’t want this.” Her arm swept around the office, taking in her life. “I’ll sell the boathouse. I’ll sell our home. I just want to get out.”

***

Dodging potholes in the dark, the nondescript Chevy Blazer raced down Magazine Street— a blue light spinning on its dashboard. Daneel had a death grip on the steering wheel, and Johnny Vodka was fumbling with his pistol, making sure the clip was full. When they passed Napoleon Avenue, Vodka flipped off the flashing light.

“That could be him,” he said, urgently, pointing across the street to a tall figure in a dark overcoat hurrying toward them.

“We’ll find out!” Daneel hit the brakes and careened over the curb, sliding to a stop an inch from a no-parking sign. The suspect abruptly ducked onto a side street and vanished in the shadows. With the motor still knocking the policemen piled out, guns in hand, and sprinted after him.

In his haste Vodka slipped on a pop bottle and twisted his ankle.

“You okay?” Daneel called over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Vodka grunted, limping as fast as he could. “Where did he go?”

Cars were parked on both sides of the narrow street. The neighborhood was a mixture of shotgun houses and bricked-up commercial establishments crowded together.

“In there, I think.” Daneel gestured with his pistol at a gray cinder-block building set back from the street. A rusty sign said SHEET METAL WORKS.

Warily Daneel approached a steel door and tried the handle. The door creaked open.

Vodka nodded at him.

Daneel slid inside and his partner followed, trying to be thin.

The interior was black as ink and smelled of grease and chemicals. A noise ahead of them like a file scraping across a pipe caused both cops to crouch and point their weapons.

Somewhere glass broke.

“Police!” Vodka yelled. “Show yourself and nobody gets hurt!”

“Can’t see a goddamn thing,” Daneel muttered, groping along the wall for a light switch. He found a lever and pulled it.

Expecting illumination he was instead enveloped by the deafening roar of gears grinding into action and a frightening flapping overhead as though some huge bird’s sleep had been disturbed.

In his surprise Vodka jumped on his gimpy ankle, which gave way, and he crumpled onto the floor, cursing. He nearly discharged his gun into his leg.

Daneel spun around, searching for the source of the noise. Frantically he banged along the wall, punching buttons and flipping switches. Suddenly the ceiling lights came on, revealing a vast network of machines and pulleys. The flapping noise above came from a belt that ran the length of the room, powering the mysterious system.

Vodka sat cross-legged on the cement.

“Police,” he said weakly. “Give it up.”

Not far away a black sedan started up and drove slowly into the night, its headlights off.

Inside the factory the policemen got the presses turned off. They searched the interior until broken glass and an open door at the back convinced them they had lost their quarry.

It was a bitter disappointment. A fifteen-year-old girl, dropped off after a party, had been assaulted two blocks away. Somewhere in the city was a brutal man who liked to hate young women. Vodka and Daneel had been after him for three months. Lately he seemed hungrier.

The black mongrel that hung out by the pool hall lifted his leg to pee on the telephone pole. Enraptured by a new scent, he sniffed at the edge of the tall weeds. He recognized the body as being human, but never had he encountered a lifeless one thrown out with the trash.

He grabbed the arm with his teeth and shook it, determined to get a response.

Disappointed, he growled and fought tenaciously, tugging at his discovery with such intensity that most of the body came flopping out into the street. Ants had been at work. They boiled out at the distraction.

Uncertain what to do, the dog started running in circles around the body. A car driving down the street had to slow down or hit the dog. The driver stuck his head out of his window, blew his horn to scare the mutt, and quickly accelerated away.

The big woman who lived across the street came out on her porch to tell the dog to shut up, but she got curious enough to go down her steps to investigate. She saw the head of hair and the gold fingernails and figured out the rest.

“Oh, Jesus,” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Somebody call nine one one.”

***

Cherrylynn was taking a long lunch— maybe having a job interview somewhere, Tubby feared— so he was working the phones himself.

He kept trying, off and on, to reach Sultana Patel, the key witness against Al Hughes and now the key to his entrapment defense, but her phone just rang and rang.

He called his client the judge, but his secretary, Mrs. Evans, said he absolutely could not be disturbed.

It gave Tubby time to wallow in his own lassitude.

Raisin Partlow, the friend upon whom he had long depended for refreshingly bitter common sense, was in a fool’s pursuit of the fountain of youth. Tubby had little desire even to see Raisin these days.

His professional role model, the judge, was in the mud.

His daughters all had lives of their own, and it was frightening how little he knew about them.

And his potential girlfriend, Faye Sylvester? She was trying to lure him to a place far away. But could he breathe there?

All of the familiar landmarks of the town he loved best were disappearing, it was true. The courthouse was in the grip of a district attorney bent on stomping out all the fun in life. Mudbugs dance hall was gone. The Galleria had changed its name. The price of crawfish was up. He was having trouble remembering why it was he loved New Orleans.